2. Ethics are the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior.
Research ethics may be referred to as doing what is morally and
legally right in research. They are actually norms for conduct that
distinguish between right and wrong, and acceptable and
unacceptable behavior.
Research ethics provides guidelines for the responsible conduct of
biomedical research. In addition, research ethics educates and
monitors scientists conducting research to ensure a high ethical
standard.
Bioethics is the interdisciplinary study of ethical issues arising in
the life sciences, health care, and health and science policy.
3. The birth of modern research ethics began with a desire to
protect human subjects involved in research projects. The first
attempt to craft regulations began during the Doctors Trial of
1946-1947. The Doctors Trial was a segment of the Nuremberg
Trials for Nazi war criminals.
The judgement by the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg
Germany, laid down ten standards to which physicians must
conform when carrying out experiments on human subjects.
Started as concerns regarding research ethics.
4. Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial 23 German physicians physicians were
accused of conducting abhorrent and torturous “experiments” with
concentration camp inmates who either participated in the Nazi
program to euthanize persons deemed "unworthy of life“ or who
conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners without their
consent were tried.
The accused physicians tortured, brutalized, crippled, and murdered
thousands of victims in the name of research.
Some of their experiments involved gathering scientific information
about the limits of the human body by exposing victims to extreme
temperatures and altitudes.
The trial lasted 140 days.85 witnesses testified and almost 1,500
documents wereintroduced.16 of the doctors charged were found
guilty.7 were executed.
5. The Nuremberg Code consisted of ten basic ethical principles .
The 10 guidelines were as follows:
1. Research participants must voluntarily consent to research
participation
2. Research aims should contribute to the good of society
3. Research must be based on sound theory and prior animal
testing
4. Research must avoid unnecessary physical and mental suffering.
5. No research projects can go forward where serious injury and/or
death are potential outcomes
6. 6. The degree of risk taken with research participants cannot
exceed anticipated benefits of results
7. Proper environment and protection for participants is necessary.
8. Experiments can be conducted only by scientifically qualified
persons.
9. Human subjects must be allowed to discontinue their
participation at any time .
10. Scientists must be prepared to terminate the experiment if there
is cause to believe that continuation will be harmful or result in
injury or death
7. The Nuremberg Guidelines paved the way for the next major
initiative designed to promote responsible research with human
subjects, the Helsinki Declaration. The Helsinki Declaration was
developed by the World Medical Association and has been revised
and updated periodically since 1964, with the last update
occurring in 2000.
The Helsinki Declaration contains all the basic ethical elements
specified in the Nuremberg Code but then advances further
guidelines specifically designed to address 5 the unique
vulnerabilities of human subjects solicited to participate in
clinical research projects.
8. The necessity of using an independent investigator to review
potential research projects
Employing a medically qualified person to supervise the research
and assume responsibility for the health and welfare of human
subjects
The importance of preserving the accuracy of research results
Suggestions on how to obtain informed consent from research
participants
Rules concerning research with children and mentally incompetent
persons
Evaluating and using experimental treatments on patients
The importance of determining which medical situations and
conditions are appropriate and safe for research.
9. Following the Helsinki Declaration, the next set of research ethics
guidelines came out in the Belmont Report of 1979 from the
National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of
Biomedical and Behavioral Research.
The aspects of Belmont Reports are:
1. The ethical principles for research with human subjects
2. Boundaries between medical practice and research
3. The concepts of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice
4. Applications of certain principles in informed consent (respect for
persons), assessing risks and benefits (beneficence), and subject
selection (justice)
10. Honesty: Strive for honesty in all scientific
communications. Honestly report data, results,
methods and procedures, and publication status. Do
not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data. Do not
deceive colleagues, research sponsors, or the public.
Objectivity: Strive to avoid bias in experimental design,
data analysis, data interpretation, peer review,
personnel decisions, grant writing, expert testimony,
and other aspects of research where objectivity is
expected or required. Avoid or minimize bias or self-
deception. Disclose personal or financial interests that
may affect research.
11. Integrity: Keep your promises and agreements; act
with sincerity; strive for consistency of thought and
action.
Carefulness: Avoid careless errors and negligence;
carefully and critically examine your own work and
the work of your peers. Keep good records of
research activities, such as data collection, research
design, and correspondence with agencies or
journals.
Openness: Share data, results, ideas, tools,
resources. Be open to criticism and new ideas.
12. Transparency: Disclose methods, materials,
assumptions, analyses, and other information needed to
evaluate your research.
Accountability: Take responsibility for your part in
research and be prepared to give an account (i.e. an
explanation or justification) of what you did on a
research project and why.
Intellectual Property: Honor patents, copyrights, and
other forms of intellectual property. Don’t use
unpublished data, methods, or results without
permission. Give proper acknowledgement or credit for
all contributions to research. Never plagiarize.
13. Confidentiality: Protect confidential
communications, such as papers or grants
submitted for publication, personnel records,
trade or military secrets, and patient records.
Responsible Publication: Publish in order to
advance research and scholarship, not to advance
just your own career. Avoid wasteful and
duplicative publication.
Responsible Mentoring: Help to educate, mentor,
and advise students. Promote their welfare and
allow them to make their own decisions.
14. Respect for Colleagues: Respect your colleagues
and treat them fairly.
Social Responsibility: Strive to promote social
good and prevent or mitigate social harms
through research, public education, and
advocacy.
Non-Discrimination: Avoid discrimination against
colleagues or students on the basis of sex, race,
ethnicity, or other factors not related to scientific
competence and integrity.
15. Competence: Maintain and improve your own
professional competence and expertise through
lifelong education and learning; take steps to
promote competence in science as a whole.
Legality: Know and obey relevant laws and
institutional and governmental policies.
Animal Care: Show proper respect and care for
animals when using them in research. Do not
conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal
experiments.
16. Human Subjects protection: When conducting
research on human subjects, minimize harms
and risks and maximize benefits; respect
human dignity, privacy, and autonomy; take
special precautions with vulnerable
populations; and strive to distribute the
benefits and burdens of research fairly.
17. Authorship
Plagiarism
Peer review
Conflicts of interest
Data management
Research misconduct
Research with animals
Research with human subjects
18. 1. Informed consent is the prime responsibility of the researcher. A
standard procedure in professional codes of ethics is ‘informed
consent’ ..
2. The researcher must reveal all the risks associated with the research to
the participants.
3. The knowledge gap between the researcher and the participants must
be considered.
4. The privacy, anonymity and confidentiality of the participants.
5. Participants must be given an option of rejecting data-gathering
devices.
6. To make them convenient and easily understandable, the questionnaire
and other forms of rating scales must be designed in the native
language of the participants.
19. 7. Participants’ safety is the prime concern.
8. It's the responsibility of the researcher to protect participants
from the risks arising from their research.
9. The researcher should protect and promote the rights and
interests of the participants.
10. The researcher must take care of their own safety.
11.Researchers must take care of cultural, religious, economic,
psychological, spiritual, physiological, biological, political, social
and other issues of the participants.
12. Researchers are expected to consider ethical implications and
uphold ethical standards like principles of integrity, honesty,
objectivity and openness.
20. Collaborative research involving coordination between the researchers,
institutions, organizations, and communities.
Elements of Collaborative Research:
Collaboration establishes channels for open communication where
participants need to be encouraged to take opportunities for the renewal
of the older systems
Engaging all partners and others where they should provide feedback
and engage in self-reflection
Collaboration also defines the clarity of roles and responsibilities
To establish a professional environment and to respect different cultures
of different organizations.
21. Individual challenges
Scarcity of competent researchers
Lack of sound methodologically
Lack of scholarship (As an individualized endeavor, and academic
frameworks for recognition, rewards, and promotions are supposed
at individual level)
Stress of promotion and tenure process(single-authored
publications are given more credit as compared to collaborative
work)
Intellectual property rights are the central issue and occur in
various categories of members in collaborative research.
22. Institutional challenges
This is because of differences in different approaches among the
collaborating partners.
For example, if a collaboration occurs between industry and
institutional level, discrepancies do occur between objectives,
different hypothesis, cultural differences, and issues with
technology.
Challenges regarding funds
Less funds granted for research to universities
This leads to less focus on research and more on teaching by the
universities resulting in separation of education and research. Due
to funding restrictions, most of the significant work of Indian
research is in theoretical domain.
23. Systematic challenges
The success of the scientists is prioritized by becoming an
administrative head in research institutions rather than
advancing research.
The prevalence of ineptitude among the spectrum has made
incompetent scientists to strengthen their weakness.
There is a culture of elitism in our Indian laboratories, where
the manual work is done by laboratory assistants and
scientists mostly just command orders.
24. Maximize outputs.
Maximize impact.
Attract funding.
Expand your network.
Embrace the new opportunities.
Teaches new skills.
Make new friends.
Gain a new perspective.
Stimulating IPR.
Motivates positive energy.
25. In Medical Education, collaborative research can be classified in three ways:
1. Institutional Context:
Research can be represented by the number of administrative units involved.
A simple group involves multiple researchers from the same administrative
unit.
A simple group could be a collaboration among Rice researchers. A complex
group involves multiple researchers from different administrative units.
A multi-sector group involves researchers from multiple sectors, which can
include government, industry, and community.
26. 2. Number of Academic Fields:
Research can be homogeneous or heterogeneous.
Homogeneous collaboration involves researchers from a single
discipline working together to solve a problem.
This is considered unidisciplinary research.
Heterogeneous collaboration involves researchers from multiple
disciplines working together to solve a problem.
27. 3. Heterogeneous research:
Heterogeneous research can be multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary,
and transdisciplinary. Unidisciplinary research can be considered
collaborative if occurs between multiple administrative units.
Multidisciplinary research occurs when researchers from different
disciplines work separately in their own discipline to solve a joint
problem. Interdisciplinary research occurs when researchers work
together to solve a problem but still focus on their own disciplines.
Transdisciplinary research occurs when researchers work together
using a shared conceptual framework
28. Publication ethics are rules of conduct generally agreed upon
when publishing results of scientific research or other scholarly
work.
Publication and research ethics involves systematizing,
defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong
conduct in the scientific research experiment.
Knowing and following the ethical guidelines while conducting
research is very essential.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is a nonprofit
organization whose stated mission is to define best practice in
the ethics of scholarly publishing and to assist
editors and publishers to achieve this.
29. 1. Journal Reporting Standards
The good journal reporting standards follow, presenting accurate
results in the manuscript.
Every statement in the paper with proper justification and
appropriate references, and avoiding misleading or manipulated
statements in the manuscript.
2. Plagiarism
Authors should ensure that they have written and submitted only
entirely original works.
If they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has
been appropriately cited.
30. 3. Public Dataset Access
Reporting authors should make their core research dataset in the
public scientific forum or University websites.
It should be maintained for at least for 5 years after publication of
the journal.
4. Involvement of Hazards and Animals Research
Ensuring the participation of animals or human participants in the
research is another important ethical guideline.
If the research work involved the animals, the authors should
ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with the
legal guidelines.
The approval certification for the usage of hazards and animal
participation should be submitted to the journal.
31. 5. Multiple Manuscript Submission and Publication
Publishing the same article in more than one journal with minor
modification is an unacceptable ethical practice.
However, translating a highly reputed published manuscript to
another language is acceptable.
Some important research improvements in the same work are also
acceptable.
In such situation, author must cite the first work in the second
work.
32. Importance – Does the research impact health and health care?
Usefulness – Does the study provide useful scientific information?
Relevance – Does the research apply to the journal’s readers and content
area of interest?
Sound methods – Was the research conducted with sound scientific
methods that allowed the researchers to answer their research question?
• Sound ethics – Was the study conducted ethically ensuring proper
protection for human subjects? Were results reported accurately and
honestly?
• Completeness – Is all information relevant to the study included in the
article?
• Accuracy – Is the written product a true reflection of the conduct and
results of the research?20
33. 1. Use Journal Finder
Most of the leading publishers provide a free tool called ‘Journal
Finder’, which helps to identify the right suitable journal for
research area with relevant keyword to publish the manuscript.
some of the journal finding tools are given below.
IEEE Publication Recommender
Wiley Jounal Finder
Elsvier Journal Finder
Springer Nature Journal Suggester
Edanz Journal Selector
Cofactor Journal Selector
34. 2. What type of article accepted by the journal?
Before going to submit your manuscript verify the types of articles
accepted by the journal (Review, Case study or Theorem). Ensuring
the journal’s publication policy will reduce more time by selecting
the right journal.
3. Get expert recommendations
Getting a view about the journal from senior scholars or
professors is a good idea to select the journal. If they already
published their article in that journal then they would have
enough knowledge about the journal procedures.
35. 4. Analysis Journal Metrics
Analysis journal’s Impact Factor(IF) is one measure of its
reputation, but not always the most important. You should
consider the prestige of the authors that publish in the journal
and whether your research is of a similar level.
Check Impact Factor(IF).
5. Check the frequency of the publication
The different journal has a different timeline of the review
process, always verify the frequency of the publication (Monthly,
Quarterly, or Twice a yearly) before submitting your manuscript.
36. 6. Published Articles in the Literature
Analyze the published articles in your field that are similar in
scope and impact on the field, and see where they were
published.
It is an easy way of selecting the journal by checking your
literature review paper’s publication.
Always select two or three choices of a suitable journal from your
research area.
If your paper is rejected from your first-choice journal, you can
quickly submit to your second-choice journal.
37.
38. The proposal submitted for ethical approval should demonstrate
that each of the following ethical aspects are not only addressed,
but are discussed in a logical and cogent fashion:
1. Respect and dignity of participants
2. Privacy and confidentiality
3. Balance of benefits and risks
4. Sampling plan – fair participant selection
5. Competence and capacity of researcher
6. Protocols and procedures followed in dealing with minors,
vulnerable persons (if applicable)